Scarica the Vietnam War - lavoro di gruppo riguardante la guerra in Vietnam e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VIETNAM WAR The Vietnam War was the longest and perhaps most unpopular war in United States history. It lasted twenty years (November 1, 1955 to April 30, 1975). More than 3 million people have lost their life. THE U.S. ENTERS THE WAR The Vietnam War was fought between the pro-Communist North Vietnamese and the anti-Communist South Vietnamese. The United States entered the war to support South Vietnam in order to stop the spread of communism and the threat of the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. At the time the United States decided to enter the war, Ho Chi Minh had risen to become a popular leader in North Vietnam. He used his army to defeat the French, which had colonized Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh declared that he wanted to push out the French and unite all of Vietnam under Communist rule. He got the support of the Soviet Union, an enemy of the United States. On August 2, 1964, gunboats of North Vietnam allegedly fired on ships of the United States Navy stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin. When reports came in that further firing occurred on August 4, President Johnson quickly asked Congress to respond. At the time, the United States subscribed to the “Domino Theory” of communism — a communist victory in Vietnam might lead to communist victories in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Such a scenario was unthinkable to American diplomats. So, with nearly unanimous consent, members of the Senate and House told Johnson to "take all necessary measures" to repel North Vietnamese aggression. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave the President a “blank check” to wage the war in Vietnam as he saw fit. A DIFFICULT BATTLEFIELD Between 1965 and 1968, the fighting escalated. Thousands of American soldiers were sent to fight in the unforgiving jungles of Vietnam, which had been booby- trapped by the Viet Cong, a pro-communist guerilla force led by Ho Chi Minh. The Viet Cong was hard to identify because they were not a conventional army force. They blended in with the native population and struck American forces by ambush, often at night. AN UNPOPULAR WAR One factor that influenced the failure of the United States in Vietnam was lack of public support. Night after night, Americans turned on the news to see the bodies of their young flown home in bags. Young men were drafted to fight in the war, many of them having to defer a college education. The average age of the American soldier in Vietnam was nineteen. As the months of the war became years, the American public became impatient for a resolution. Some young people took to the streets to protest the war, and others — although only a very small percentage — came to sympathize with the Viet Cong. By the late 1960s, many began to feel it
